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SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC CONDITIONS
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speech. His son Sarvadeva has been called a peer to Brahmā (Svayambhū), the four faced god which implies that he was a scholar of four Vedas or four lores such as philosophy, the three Vedas, economics and the science of politics. The son of Sarvadeva, Dhanapāla has been called a “Vipra' which means a 'sage' in the Yajurveda XXVI 15
"उपह्वरे गिरीणां संगमे च नदीनाम्। धिया विप्रो अजायत''
i.e. In the solitude of mountains and confluence of streams a sage develops his spiritual force, contemplating on God through yoga.?
In a way the word 'vipra' here has been construed to mean a poet, an intellectual who creates his muse in the isolation of the environments of Nature. Dhanapāla, the vipra composed his 'Kathā' (Tilakamañjarī). He has been called a 'Vipra’ to mean a Brahmana as well as an intellectual, a poet, a prose writer. Dhanapāla has taken the words 'dvijanmā' and 'Vipra' synonymously to mean the first of the four orders. Ayodhyā, the nagarī was as though endowed with the 'Brahmaloka' or the Universe of the Vedic scholars by virtue of the consemblies of the dvijas or twice born who used to be called so after they had undergone the ceremony of Upaneyana at a specific age. “Dvija' in ancient India was fairly a wider term meaning the first three of the four orders i.e. Brāhmaṇas, Kșatriyas and Vaisyas (Brahma, Kșatra, Vis). In later classical epoch they earned the special significance attached to the first order.
The Brāhmaṇas have been called 'dvijāti', 'śrotriyas'," and dviya Brahma” etc. Ksatriyas have been mentioned as such at a number of places. The third order or the Vaisya has been represented by the term 'vanig' in
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which makes this third order skilled in worldly customs and endowed with instinctive timorousness.
The fourth order is inferable from
1. KAŚ I 2.1. Vol. I p. 4, Vol. II p. 6. 2. Yaj. V. XXVI 15 pp 394-395 ed. by Devi Chand. 3. TM Vol. II pp. 164, 251, 254, 257, Sm. ed. p. 331. 4. Ibid. Vol. II p. 266 Vol. III p. 171. 5. Ibid. Vol. III p. 83. 6. Ibid. Vol. I p. 94, Vol. I p. 123. 7. Ibid. Vol. II p. 275. 8. Ibid. Vol. II p. 279.
